God bless the intelligence and wit of the creators and writers at The Onion. I don’t look at the site often enough. But here’s yet another article worth noting, relevant to this “geeking-out” culture to which I (and many of you out there!) have a slight addiction: Half Of 26-Year-Old’s Memories Nintendo-Related
It’s scary. This could actually carry some truth to it!
Coming out of the holiday season, the women in the Vancouver Tech world were welcomed into 2008 by a gracious (and overdue) blog post, written by Krug, and compiled and inspired as a collective effort with Dave O..
While the TechVibes digi people to watch list was accurate and nice to see written, there was a big miss, in my humble opinion. It was quickly spotted and noted by the Raincity Dudes (and Romina!), hence, their follow-up list of Tech Women To Watch – thanks guys for jumping all over this! Note To Photo: Lipgloss and Laptops Lady Tech Gurus Kerry Anne and Airdrie
Speaking of “Women Who Tech”: this is a TeleSummit event happening at the end of March that I think could be interesting for all you women out there. Currently, it is only available to US residents, but the organizers have ensured me they are working on having Canadians enabled to participate as well. You can make a panel suggestion for the event here.
I have this “new year” block. Every year. The Birthday block. I don’t consider it a new year until January 9. How self-centred is that?! I find this somewhat strange because I don’t quite care about age. Maybe it’s just my excuse to keep the party going. Yeah, that’s it. Regardless, with each new year, or birthday, it’s reflection time.
I’ve just looked back to last year’s “goal list” post, and all the things I wanted to accomplish in 2007. Let’s just say that I will happily adopt some of them for every year, and for those things that did not get done, I’ll tack them onto every year as well. I will simplify my 2008 goal list here and now:
I think the Chinese are onto something with that whole “8” luck thing – I have a great feeling about this year.
I am slowly resurfacing from a much-needed 2-week offline hiatus. In a word: lovely, but I am looking forward to exercising these itching fingers. I am delayed, again, in flight travel. The first delay was waiting for the heat to pass over Mexico. This wait is due to a blustery snow squall blowing over this glorious island in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s been a true coast to coast (to coast) whirlwind holiday. I am so fortunate. This holiday has been wonderful, filled with plenty of good: sunshine, snowstorms, plenty of bevvies, family, friends and laughter.
Up next: The big 2008 goal list…. Happy New Year and best of health and happiness to all in 2008!
Wow, has it really been over three weeks? Have I lost the luster? Has life really gotten that complicated that I don’t even (gasp) blog on my own space any more?
Yes, life can sometimes get a little complicated, or, like some people in my world right now it seems, a lot complicated. And blogging about pretty much anything kind of becomes unimportant and can seem trivial to a point, unless of course you turn to the blog to unload some of what’s happening in life around you. Not my first choice. And let’s not dismiss the fact that lately my snippets of info and connecting come mostly in the form of FB updates…
It’s now T-Minus 8 days, and for the first time in over a year, I am going unplugged, unreachable, unplug-in-able, off the map, dedicating a whole week to sun, yoga and mint in my drinks.
But before that, here’s a whole slew of stuff that’s been going on that I’ve had every intention to write about:
Get your tickets now!
That is, sign your name to the wiki and/or the Facebook group.
When: Thu Nov 22 5:30 – 7:30pm (drinks provided after)
Where: Workspace – 21 Water Street, Suite 400, Gastown – Map
Special Event: DEMOBEER! Communicate.com, Peer 1 and Techvibes have all chipped in to provide appies and drinks after the main event. Brian at Gastown’s newest digs, Flux Bistro, is graciously shutting down his joint to host the slew of Demo Campers. So arrive thirsty!
DemoCampVan 04 has a healthy slate of folks ready to demo, and we’re bringin’ back the Battledecks! Tod Maffin has pieced together a deck and a “mystery deck creator” (!?) is coming to the table with the other….
See you there!
This week Joyent announced their new Facebook developers program, Joyent Accelerators. Kinzin is well acquainted with Joyent’s infrastructure – it’s what has made the scalability of the “Are You Normal?” Facebook application manageable and successful. The app has jumped to half a million users in a month, has been one of the top apps on the “Recently Popular” Facebook list (more than once), and continues to add tens of thousands new users every day. Joyent’s full case study and more details on the app can be found here.
Joyent Accelerators is “free, fast and scalable hosting”, as quoted by Facebook Senior Platform Manager, Dave Morin.
Joyent has partnered with Facebook and Dell to deliver this sophisticated, scalable, on-demand infrastructure. For developers, it means a quick and efficient launch of Facebook applications that are capable of scaling to millions of users – FOR FREE.
You can read plenty more about this announcement and partnership on a number of our technologist friends’ tech news sites: Read/Write Web, Innovation Creators, Rootly, Social media today, Information Week.
I spent last week in Newfoundland with a great group of people, conceptualizing and strategizing to build a web portal for women in film, to be extended further of course to include *both* genders. We’re starting with women, as the client is the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival; a festival that has been successfully operating and growing for 18 years.
I was at the festival last year speaking about marketing your film online, social media and web 2.0 tools. Word on the street is it’s the best small film festival going. Well, given the locale alone, of course it is! As a side note, this comment is not surprising. I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t rave about Newfoundland after visiting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a story (of people who have visited for the first time) that ends in “… and now they’re moving here.”. I could go on.
What’s surprising for me to learn while in this process of working with Pattie from Catapult Media and Kelly and Lynn here at the festival HQ is that for most of the calendar year, this festival is run and operated as a one-person show. What gives? Kelly Davis does an amazing job each year, and continues to do so, and this year was able to hire Lynn Kristmanson for a short contract to assist and take control of certain aspects, but where are the funds to support this amazing arts community and this festival that has international attention and acclaim? If it is to grow and continue to build on its successes and reputation, the people and staff behind it must grow as well.
This is a pretty common tale in the arts right across the country. Federal and Provincial governments have long been held accountable for a lack of funding for the arts community, and in this case, I think it’s a miss on supporting the culture and heritage sector as well.
I’d be interested to hear from anyone who shares the same conundrum as Kelly Davis and the Film Festival in St. John’s. More people working on this project equals more outreach equals more industry participation equals more local contribution and tourism dollars pumped into the local economy, all with a reputable, successful, in this case international, artistic, cultural event at the core.
xposted from Kinzin’s Blog.
Last night was all about the app.
Vancouver, or more recently referred to as “Techcouver”, held its’ first Facebook Developer Garage event downtown at the Vancouver Film School. The event was completely “sold-out” by over double the capacity of the space, so there wasn’t a seat to be had. Once the Nazi-tech guy made his way from the floor back to the booth for the main event to commence, people began to fill the isles and find space wherever they could. It was a packed house.
There were about 9 Facebook applications in all that were on display over the 3 hours. Each developer, or team of developers, grabbed the spotlight for a 10-minute overview of their respective app and covered any technical aspects worth mentioning and sharing, followed by a brief Q and A for each. David Morin, Senior Platform Manager for Facebook (nice title buddy) was meant to be joining us in the flesh for our inaugural evening, but had to cancel 48 hours in advance due to some “big meeting” at HQ. But he was kind enough to take a few minutes out to appear via Skype Video, as he said a few nice words, opened it up to the floor for some questions, when sadly, the connection was lost.
Paul Prescod, ‘DAD’ at Kinzin, shared the “Are You Normal?” app with the crowd. When he gave the current-users statistics (now over 114K in 3 short weeks), there was a gasp as a hush fell over the room. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. But nonetheless, impressive stuff! Johnny Bufu and Boris Mann wrapped the night with a few words on the open web. Facebook? Open??
There is a complete breakdown of each presentation on the live blog post from Miss 604, and on Roland Tanglao’s Jaiku Channel.
Today marks The United Nations Day for the Eradication of Poverty. To make your difference, join millions around the world as they STAND UP and SPEAK OUT to Make Poverty History. This event, STAND UP, has been issued by the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and the United Nations Millennium Campaign.
“Let world leaders know that we are holding them accountable for their promises to end poverty by 2015.”
You could perhaps sail the Nile, but if that’s not quite possible and you’ve run out of time to arrange a formal gathering of participation, you can find a local event to take part in, or be spontaneous wherever this day finds you – whether you are around a dinner table with family or friends, in a store, a section of a restaurant, a bank line-up – share your plight and record the number of people you engage in standing for one minute for “Standing Against Poverty”. Or (and this is likely the easiest way) just click here and show your support as an individual.
Record all and any of your support here.
If you live in Vancouver:
On the 18th of October at 8pm the OXFAM Party Against Poverty, to be held at the Plaza Club at 881 Granville St., will feature Murray Atkinson, Hey Ocean!, Lotus Child, The Wassabi Collective, and Freeflow. Tickets are $14 in advance and $20 at the door. Proceeds will go to Oxfam Canada. For more information contact Miriam at 604-736-7678 or miriamp@oxfam.ca .